


Five Times Jonathan Archer Married T'Pol, and One Time She Married Him

by fiendlikequeen



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I love these dumb idiots, The fluffiest fluff, Unrequited Love, but only a little angst, everyone knows jon, jonathan archer being not very subtle about wanting to marry t'pol, oh god so fluffy, that becomes requited, you have no chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-20 06:45:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11330610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiendlikequeen/pseuds/fiendlikequeen
Summary: Pretending to be married is often the best way to pacify a suspicious or belligerent alien - but maybe Jonathan Archer should stop pretending to be married to T'Pol.Or maybe not.





	Five Times Jonathan Archer Married T'Pol, and One Time She Married Him

**Author's Note:**

> Reimagined scenes from "Acquisition" (1.19), "Desert Crossing" (1.24), "The Communicator" (2.8), "Stratagem" (3.14), "The Forge" (4.7), as well as a scene set outside of the show's specific plotline.
> 
> An innocent, fluffy fic with only brief mentions of angst. Wholesome and healthy fluffy content, like if marshmallows were high in vitamins or something. And though I love my son Trip, but Archer/T'Pol is my ride-or-die ship. Here, have my contribution.

The first time Jonathan attempts to marry T’Pol – albeit fictitiously  – he is trying to keep an altogether-too-friendly marauder away from his incapacitated science officer. Krem is very interested in T’Pol, and Jonathan briefly considers trying to convince the big-eared alien that T’Pol is nothing to be interested in. He opts, instead, for a different path.

“Get away from that woman,” he says, as Krem begins to stroke T’Pol’s ear. “I don’t care that you’re the one with the weapon, but if you touch her again, I’ll knock you on your ass.”

Krem leaps up, evidently frightened, but then narrows his eyes and puts on a show of bluster. “Get back to work. I’ll do what I like. And I like this one,” he says, turning back to T’Pol. “She is…different.”

“She is,” says Jonathan. That much is true. “She’s a Vulcan.”

“She’s very beautiful.”

“She is,” he says again, because that much is also true. T’Pol is indeed exceptionally attractive and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed it.

“Do you think she knows how to perform _oo-mox_?” Krem asks, and his tone convinces Jonathan that he _really_ doesn’t want to know what that word means. But he takes a cue from Krem’s interest.

“Don’t know. But I’d hazard a guess that she’d be able to learn. Vulcans are renowned for their sensuality,” he says. It would be a stretch to claim that about most Vulcans, but T’Pol is hardly the average Vulcan. He allows himself a little leer as he goes on. “I certainly didn’t marry her for her personality. Let’s just say that she’s well-trained in the arts of pleasure.”

Krem doesn’t hide his excitement very well, and so Jonathan goes on.

“Listen, if you leave my wife alone, I’ll get you one of your own. T’Pol has a sister,” he invents, wildly. “And if you leave her with me, I’ll make sure her sister finds her way to you.”

Despite Krem’s interest, that angle doesn’t work, so they have to come up with a new plan – which does work. Some time later, T’Pol comes to free Jonathan from Krem’s restraints. She doesn’t unlock them right away, dangling the key from one slender finger.

“‘Vulcans are renowned for their sensuality,’” she says, taunting him with the key. “‘She’s well-trained in the arts of pleasure.’”

Jonathan realizes, in absolute horror, that Trip must have revived T’Pol _before_ his little charade, and he weakly rattles his cuffs.

“Open these things, sub-commander,” he says. “That’s an order.”

 

The second time Jonathan claims that he and T’Pol are married, she’s just commed him and practically ordered him back to _Enterprise._ He and Trip have been having a grand old time with Zobral – blood soup aside – and Jonathan doesn’t feel the need to cut their visit short. But his generous host is a terrorist, apparently, and while Jonathan disagrees with T’Pol’s assessment, he sees, albeit very grudgingly, the merit of her logical proposal that he and Trip return.

His host doesn’t take it well, and that’s why Jonathan has to think fast.

“I am very easily offended,” says Zobral, his deep, rumbling voice making him sound like he’s not entirely joking.

Jonathan chuckles. “So is she,” he says, and when Zobral doesn’t relent, he goes on, allowing himself an improvisation. “Trust me, if I don’t listen to her now I’ll be sleeping on the deck for a week. When you’re married you’ll understand.”

Trip is visibly fighting to keep his jaw from hitting the sand. He’s made a strange sound, somewhere between a squeak and a grunt, and he adds a feigned cough to this undignified soundtrack to cover his surprise.

Zobral seems to buy it, but it makes no difference. That’s how Jonathan and Trip end up holed up in a bunker during an air raid, and it’s at this point that Trip finds his voice and asks the obvious question.

“You, uh, got something you want to tell me about you and the sub-commander?” he asks, his eyebrows raised and his voice hesitant.

Jonathan laughs. “What, you don’t think we’d make a good match?” he teases.

Trip gives a dramatic sigh. “I’m not saying that,” he says, though that is _exactly_ what he seems to be saying. “I’m just…she’s gonna throw a hell of a fit if she ever finds out you did this _again,_ sir. Well, as much of a fit as Vulcans _can_ throw.”

“I’d imagine a Vulcan throwing a fit looks a lot like an ordinary Vulcan,” says Jonathan. “Only somehow _more_ sullen and argumentative.”

“Well, you’d know,” says Trip. “You married one.”

Jonathan and Trip erupt in laughter.

 

The third time, it’s neither T’Pol nor Trip that overhears him trying to marry his science officer, but Malcolm. Malcolm, whose lost communicator has landed the pair of them in interrogation, with a host of suspicious, pre-warp aliens convinced that they are spies.

Worse still, the aliens have gotten ahold of more of their technology – by attempting to prevent cultural contamination, they have escalated the situation beyond Jonathan’s greatest expectations, or his greatest fears.

It’s a piece of that additional technology that gets them into more trouble. In a bitter little twist of fate, it’s _Jonathan’s_ communicator that has given them added grief.

“Which of you is the captain?” the alien demands, in the smooth, controlled tone of an experienced interrogator. “Something unexpected happened when I was examining this transmitter. It began to make a sound, so I opened it. Someone calling herself ‘T’Pol’ seemed very concerned about her captain’s wellbeing.”

He pauses, and this gives Jonathan the time to stare firmly at the floor, consider his options, and then come up with a ludicrous, foolhardy explanation. At least this explanation probably won’t contaminate the culture any further, if it works – and T’Pol should at least be pleased with that.

“I’m not a captain,” he says. “It’s just a nickname.”

“What?” says his interrogator.

“Doesn’t your wife have a nickname for you?” he asks. “Y’know, the sort of thing she’d call you…in bed?”

Malcolm gives a little wheeze, and it sounds like either the man is dying of respiratory failure, or he’s just imagined what Jonathan is suggesting.

“ _What,_ ” seethes the alien, and it’s no longer a question.

“She just wants me home on time for dinner,” Jonathan adds, glibly, and with a smile.

Based on how hard the alien’s subordinate punches Jonathan, it’s evident that this particular strategy hasn’t worked.

 

The fourth time, he’s sitting in the retrofitted shuttlepod, trying to convince a Xindi scientist that they’ve been imprisoned together for years and have defied the odds and become friends. It’s a stretch – the amnesia, the fact that a human and a Xindi could become friends, even in the face of civil Xindi conflicts, but Degra seems to be taking it well.

They’re talking about Degra’s wife and children and drinking Andorian ale, when he, who up until a few hours ago was nothing more than the Xindi scientist trying to destroy Earth, asks a question.

“I can’t remember, but are you married? Do you have children?” he asks.

Jonathan smiles. “No children,” he says, and goes right for it. “But I was married. Remember how I said my ship was destroyed, with my crew on it?”

Degra nods, and Jonathan sees his trap closing around the Xindi, since there is pity, regret, and sadness in the other man’s eyes. He goes on with a sigh.

“My wife was among them,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” says Degra. “What was her name?”

“T’Pol,” says Jonathan, very acutely aware that it’s possible she’s watching them right now. He wonders if he pointed ears are burning. He’s not entirely sure why he named T’Pol as his wife, when he could have easily said Hoshi – who wouldn’t be regarding the scene on a viewscreen with a disdainful eyebrow raised – or invented a woman.

“How did you meet?” Degra asks.

“She was my science officer,” Jonathan replies. “Assigned to my ship by the Vulcan High Command. At first I couldn’t wait to get rid of her – thought about chucking her out the airlock a few times.”

“Did you love her?” says Degra, and Jonathan nearly regrets his tactics, for Degra’s eyes are full of such melancholy.

“Very much,” says Jonathan, far too quickly. Phlox says he administered Jonathan an anti-intoxicant, so that he wouldn’t become drunk on the ale, but all at once, Jonathan feels befuddled, overcome by an emotion that ought only to be a feigned one.

“Well,” says Degra, and takes a swig of the ale, before passing the bottle to Jonathan. “To T’Pol.”

“To T’Pol,” Jonathan echoes, and drinks deeply.

 

The fifth time, Jonathan claims they’re married to try to justify his presence in the Forge. Syrran – Arev, at this point, and before he deposits Surak’s _katra_ in Jonathan’s head – asks, with a justifiable but gratingly oh-so-Vulcan suspicion, what a human is doing in the Forge.

Jonathan debates answering that his interest in logic is academic, but he doubts Arev will believe him. So he looks sidelong at T’Pol, smiles, and lies.

“She said I had to learn the ways of Surak,” he says, and pastes a lovesick smile on his face that feels altogether far too genuine for his comfort. “She was doubtful about marrying a human, but agreed so long as I promised I’d try to embrace logic. Best way to do that is with a pilgrimage to the place where it all started.”

T’Pol’s eyebrows threaten to vanish into her hairline and were she anyone else, Jonathan would say he’d surprised her. As it is, she merely inclines her head and corroborates his story.

“It seemed the best way to ensure a successful partnership,” she says. “After all, humans and Vulcans share much in terms of our capacity for unchecked emotions. I believe it is possible that a human who seeks logic may learn to be as Vulcan as any of us.”

Jonathan wonders if that last bit turned to ashes in her mouth.

Arev – Syrran – looks more than mildly doubtful, but doesn’t press the matter. As it is, their true story comes out anyway, and Jonathan winds up carrying around in his head the centuries-dead father of logic himself. He wonders, idly, whether that makes him logical enough for T’Pol.

 

The sixth time, it isn’t Jonathan who tells someone that he and T’Pol are married, but the Vulcan herself. He’s been hailed by General Shran, who is trying without much success to hide his bubbling enthusiasm that Jonathan has been invited to Andoria to be made an honorary member of the Imperial Guard.

“You know,” muses Shran, his antennae waving thoughtfully, “You wouldn’t make a bad ambassador to Andoria. I think we’d benefit from someone as…distinguished as you. I think my superiors might even come to respect your military distinction.”

Jonathan allows himself a chuckle, knowing that it’s pointless to remind the Andorian that Starfleet is not the military institution that the Imperial Guard can claim to be. “Maybe someday,” he says, to pacify his friend, wondering if Shran is serious about the offer.

Shran’s eyes narrow, but he goes on. “I see you’ve put in a request for an extra seat at the ceremony,” he says. “Bringing someone along?”

“Yes,” says Jonathan.

“Who?” presses Shran, not one for subtlety.

“A – a friend,” says Jonathan, and suddenly realizes that he’s going to pay for that one.

“Who?” repeats Shran.

“Uh,” begins Jonathan, very ineloquently.

“Spit it out,” snaps Shran.

“You’ve met her. Attractive, pointy ears, fan of logic,” he says, not entirely sure why he’s being so coy about this.

“Ah, your Vulcan,” says Shran, and Jonathan positively squirms at the description that she is _his_ Vulcan. As he goes on, Shran’s antennae are angled back, a sure sign of anger. Relations between Andoria and Vulcan have improved, but Jonathan doubts Shran will ever truly trust any Vulcan. “Well, if you insist, Archer. She is certainly very attractive, even for a Vulcan female. Bu attractive or not, why you would _want_ to spend any more time with that surly, pretentious, smug-”

“It is the logical course of action,” supplies a voice behind Jonathan, and his blood runs cold as he remembers that the aforementioned Vulcan is in the room. He turns to see her regarding the viewscreen with a level stare. “At an event of such significance, it is appropriate that the guest of honor may bring his spouse.”

Jonathan – and T’Pol – are able to watch Shran nearly hit the ceiling with surprise.

“You married a _Vulcan,_ pinkskin?” he says.

Jonathan turns, and regards his wife with a smile. She inclines her head in return. “I did,” he says, and for the first time, what they are claiming is true. Trip’s death had affected both deeply, but once the cloud of sadness had lifted, Jonathan came to realize that he was not the only one who had been harboring feelings – those pesky things that the Vulcans abhorred – that he had assumed were unrequited. The development took time, effort, and several emotional outbursts, but eventually T’Pol concluded that for two people who had spent so long together, and had come to be so deeply in love, marriage was the most _logical_ solution.

“You’re insane,” says Shran. Then he sighs. “Well, you’re a brave man, Archer. I wish you the best of luck. And you, Vulcan – I hope you appreciate the mate you’ve been given. I’ll see you on Andoria, pinkskin. And you…T’Pol.”

He signs off with a grunt, and Jonathan turns to his wife. She is staring down at her PADD, but she speaks in a tone that suggests that he is in trouble.

“I hope, Jonathan, that you see me as more than _your_ Vulcan,” she says, her even tone hiding a threat.

Jonathan grins, rises from his seat, and kneels down next to his wife. He lifts his hand, holding out two fingers, and when T’Pol responds with the Vulcan kiss, he speaks.

Surely now, with the power of her touch telepathy, she knows that his words are truthful.

“Of course,” he says. “But mostly I see myself as _your_ human. If nothing else, I am yours.”

T’Pol very nearly smiles.


End file.
